


Hard Limits

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s10e04 Paper Moon, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Season/Series 10, first time in a long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 01:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3917512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just prior to -- and bleeding into -- 10.4 "Paper Moon," where the boys are taking some We Time just after Dean is re-humanized. Things could be like they used to, but Sam isn't sure he wants them to be.</p><p>Dean: Hey. Something I've been meaning to ask you.<br/>Sam: Shoot.<br/>Dean: You've been... Kicked, bit, scratched, stabbed, possessed, killed... And you sprain your friggin' elbow?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Limits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frozen_delight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozen_delight/gifts).



Weeks of adjusting his every move to minimize the handicap of his bum shoulder means every impulse screams at him when he chooses the chair that puts his useless arm between him and his brother.  
   
Dean notices.  
   
If Sam could break Dean down and build him up new, refashion his brother to his own liking, he’d keep Dean’s freaky sixth sense intact and set fire to the filter between his eyes and his brain. Of course Dean notices. Of course he notices  _that_. Sam settles back in his chair and wills his face to match the point he’s trying to make. He looks at Dean, catches his eyes before they slide away, sees how they’re watching, how they’re guarded.  
   
—  
   
It had been dark when they rolled into the park the night before, Milky Way spilled radiant above them, campfire lights flickering and reflecting in the still lake below. Rental office, of course, closed.  
   
Dean cut the headlights and coasted down the last hill, fetching up outside an unlit cabin, getting out to toss the picks over the roof of the car. Sam caught them smoothly in his left hand with not even a false start to reach out with his right. Sam noticed Dean notice, and went to one knee to open up their home for the night.  
   
Cool and dark inside and they didn’t mess with lamps or flashlights. Sam booted up the laptop and they moved easily around each other in its pale glow and in the silence after the noise of the road Sam let himself realize how much it was starting to seriously unnerve him. How easily they fell back into rhythm. Never so much as bumping into each other in the gloom.  
   
“But tomorrow we’re checking in, okay, doing this right,” Sam said, barely hearing the worn-out words, looking for his toothbrush.  
   
“Two beds?” Dean called from the other room.  
   
Sam’s hands slowed, came to a rest still tucked inside his duffel. “What do you mean?”  
   
“Best of three,” Dean leaned around the door frame, extending his fist. “Loser takes couch?”  
   
Sam knocked Dean’s hand aside and pushed past him into the room, the most contact they’d had since Dean was trying to kill him, and Sam leaned his shoulder against Dean’s but that was it. “Just leave the right side for me.” He went into the bathroom to head off thinking the words Dean would have said before.  _Thought you stopped sleeping with demons like five years ago, man._  
   
Dean was stretched out, jeans and tee and boots and all, when Sam came back in, sling re-strapped over his sleep shirt. He smacked Dean’s foot, “Getting dirt on the bed,” and slid in beside him, pulling on the covers where Dean had them pinned down. “Come on, Dean. I’m tired.”  
   
Sam tried to settle, tucking the extra pillow under his elbow the best way he’d found to get close enough to comfortable, just long enough to fall asleep. Closed his eyes when Dean sat up and looked at him  
   
“Sam. I.” Sam didn’t look to see what his brother’s face was doing to make his voice sound like that. Unsteady like he hadn’t been since they set out on this trip. Sam felt a tug, Dean’s fingers grasping then smoothing over the sheets, still on top of them, reeking with unbelonging. And then, in a burst, “Dude, I was a demon, like, last week.”  
   
Sam blinked behind his lids, shrugged horizontally. _You don’t say!_  
   
“Sammy. Man, what if I.”  
   
Sam sighed and opened his eyes.  _Dammit._  The whole point of this had been to take it easy. Go slow for awhile. Half-drawn curtains let moonlight pattern Dean’s face, hiding him from Sam, and this the first time they’d looked straight at each other all day. “Okay, Dean. Whatever you think is best. But dude, I can’t sleep on the couch,” he shrugged his right shoulder painfully.  
   
Whatever expression might have made its way to Dean’s face, the greedy play of shadow kept that, too. Wind in the trees outside masked the rustle of blankets and Dean was over him before could flinch. Nothing at all masked the feel of Dean’s fingers skimming down his bare arm, and Sam shivered.  
   
“Hurts?”  
   
Sam shook his head, unblinking. “It’s fine. Just have to be careful with it.”  
   
Stuttering over the bunch of his sleeve, callouses rasped on the strap of the sling, up and up to catch on two-day stubble.  
   
_Dean,_ he wanted to say. _Don’t._ Didn’t say anything.  
   
Dean helped him sit up. Wrapped one arm around Sam’s back and gently moved Sam’s arm, watching his face, stopping when a twitch of eye or lip taught Dean the edge of his range, how far the treacherous leash would let him run. Range of motion. It's important. It's. Ah, crucial. Sam wet his lips and held his breath and let Dean test him, learn where he bent and where he broke, where his hard limits were. Know your partner’s capabilities and weaknesses; keep your friends close.  
   
—  
   
Sam looks over when Dean sits down in the other chair, catches his eye, doesn’t look away.  
   
Dean breaks first, shrugs and squints towards the lake, only a flicker of a glance at Sam’s slinged-up arm that rests between them. “Whatever, man,” he says, dropping the cooler lid with a bang and popping the cap off his beer. “But I ain’t passing you shit.”  
   
Sam doesn’t blink, waits him out until Dean inevitably looks back at him and then barely lifts his eyebrows before he has Dean’s open bottle sweating in his hands and Dean’s pulling out another for himself. Sam reaches across his body, graceful and easy, to clink glasses with his brother, and slides his sunglasses on.  
   
—  
   
_Dean_ — he’d wanted to say. Didn’t. Couldn’t call his brother out of his moment.  
   
Out of this age-old rhythm of Dean checking on Sam, and Sam…he had one good arm, one free hand, and he used it like he always did, to find Dean in the dark. Both of them touching, exploring, silent with their breath synced up but otherwise lost, each a world to himself like if they didn’t look at each other or make any kind of noise…it was the physical manifestation of the rule where one was allowed to stare at the other while he was driving and could pretend not to see.  
   
The back of Dean’s neck prickled with his fresh haircut. His jaw so tense it seemed to vibrate beneath Sam’s palm. Breath hot and damp and suddenly much closer to Sam’s cheek than a moment ago, matching up to the moment Sam’s hand came to rest on Dean’s thigh.  
   
Dean kissed the way he had that last time. How long ago that was didn’t matter, it was longer for Sam than for Dean so he didn’t count.  
   
When Sam was on his back and Dean half on top of him, slow silent press of lips, thin cotton barely whispering between them they lay so still, when Dean’s arm beside Sam’s head began to tremble from taking his weight, he moved at last. He tried to pull Sam to him. Sam’s grunt was a short, pained noise he couldn’t hold in when so much else was clamoring all at once to be let out. Of everything inside of him it’s the pain his brother heard that made him stop. Made him sit up, look down, while shadows claimed his face again.  
   
Sam sighed through his nose and rubbed his temple, pressing life and sense back into his brain. Spell broken.  
   
“I can’t really. I mean. Really can’t afford to injure it again, you know?” He’d told Dean this before. Told him two days ago that he had to be careful of the way he sat, the way he slept. How it was driving him nuts how he couldn’t do anything but lie on his back.  
   
_Can’t do anything but lie on your back,_ that part Dean remembered, with the smirk and the eyebrows and a cocky, teasing line that came off flatter than roadkill without Sam’s answering grin, indulgence being half the joke. Sam stopped Dean’s hand just above his hip, pressed it into the bone there, felt the shock that rocked through Dean at how sharp his bones were, how prominent beneath his skin. 

 _Where did I go?_  He wanted to ask. Didn’t.  
   
“Dean, I.”  
   
“Yeah.” Dean pulled away completely, not lingering, flexing his fingers against his own thighs. “You’re right.”  
   
“No, listen, Dean. I don’t. Look, it’s not you, it’s—“  
   
“Oh, for the love of…” Dean rolled off the bed like he was ducking a shot, grabbed for his gun and his keys on the nightstand.  
   
Sam struggled to sit up, jostled his elbow, cursed, and Dean deflated. Slumped around to the other side of the bed, putting Sam’s bum arm between them, and reached for him. Touched his shoulder gingerly. Brotherly.  
   
_All right, _Sam thought. _Enough.___  This is enough for now, it can be. Let Dean go sleep on the couch, let him think he’s been cockblocked by nothing more than Sam’s busted wing. Maybe that was all either of them could handle tonight. They could do it right tomorrow. Check in, hand over some money, two beds instead of one and do this right.  
   
—  
   
A boat jets by and Sam exhales slowly. The harsh sound of a motor built for speed relaxes something in him. Beside him, Dean shifts in his creaky camp chair. Sighs, drinks, sighs again. Counts off everything that’s ever happened to Sam’s body and Sam wonders if Dean’s making room for himself on that list, if he slots himself in alongside  _possessed_ , but figures probably not.

**Author's Note:**

> For frozen_delight, who prompted: Sam/Dean, "Have you lost your mind?" That line got lost in the final draft.
> 
>  
> 
> [Originally posted here](http://canonisrelative.livejournal.com/58549.html)


End file.
